


Water and Wine

by Laney_builds_cathedrals



Category: Protector of the Small - Tamora Pierce
Genre: Carthak, Crucifixion, Eventual Alianne Cooper/Original Character, Eventual F/F, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Torture, Jousting, Mild animal abuse, Physical Abuse, Post Scanran War, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Prophetic Dreams, Shapeshifting, Slavery, another Kel project
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-21
Updated: 2016-01-23
Packaged: 2018-04-22 18:43:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 12,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4846229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laney_builds_cathedrals/pseuds/Laney_builds_cathedrals
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kel involves herself in the life of another would-be knight and becomes entangled in the affairs of the Gods.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Kel breathed out through her nose, put her left foot into the stirrup and mounted. The moment of change from the ground to the saddle always felt unreal to her, a transformation from human to superhuman as her knees gripped and her back straightened. She found the right stirrup with her foot and rose up in the saddle a moment before settling back to accept the lance that was offered to her. With a sharp nod of her head her helm’s visor swung down over her face and the sound of her breathing filled her ears, her nostrils flaring slightly at the acidic smell of metal and polish.

Through the gap between helm and visor she could see her opponent at the far end of the tilting field, his young grey charger fidgeting and snorting puffs of mist into the early morning air. The stands were nearly empty and Kel couldn’t blame people for staying away. A thin, icy rain had been falling since the evening before, so light that the softest breeze blew stinging drops sideways into your face. Wet and frustrated, her opponent’s horse lost patience and gave a small, violent buck which his rider sat admirably, leaning down as far as his tilting saddle would allow to stroke the dappled-grey neck. Kel watched his mud-flecked cloak, striped in the black and bright green of Horsehead Spit, billow out in a small gust of wind. Underneath it Sir Isaac looked to be a smallish man wearing ill-fitting armour.

The trumpet sounded and Peachblossom leapt forward like a cat whose tail has been stepped on. The grey charger reared up at the sudden noise, then, with a shouted urging from his rider, raced along the lane to meet them. Both lances struck and Kel felt the judder of Sir Isaac’s lance shattering against her shield, sending a jarring pain shooting through her shoulder. A wave of nausea roiled deep in her gut as she wheeled Peachblossom around and cantered him back to the end of her lane, lance intact. It had seemed like such a sure hit until her opponent had somehow jerked his shield down at the last second, baring himself from the collarbone up for a terrible moment of vulnerability before her lance hit the upper rim of his shield and scraped up and off, barely glancing his unprotected shoulder. It had been like missing a step on a dark staircase and Kel had been thrown wildly off-balance by it. She shook her head now, trying to concentrate as they turned their horses to face one another again and the trumpet was blown. This time she kept her gaze locked onto the man’s shield and when he feinted with it she levelled her lance and struck its centre clean and hard, throwing him back into the saddle and breaking her lance. In that exact instant of connection, Kel realised Sir Isaac’s next trick just too late to avoid it as his lance hammered into her shield’s bottom quadrant and thrust upwards with such force that the shield’s top edge smashed into her face. Dropping the remnants of her lance, Kel halted Peachblossom in the middle of the tilting field and lifted her visor with a shaking hand to spit out a mouthful of blood and, to her horror, a back tooth. Blood was running out of her nose like twin springs. She explored the point of impact on her helmet with her free hand and squeezed her eyes shut when she felt the four-inch indentation in the metal. Checking the straps on her shield arm as she rode slowly back to the starting end gave Kel time to catch her breath. One strap was broken but the other two would keep her shield on long enough for her to finish the round.

The monitor raised his eyebrows at her questioningly but she shook her head and lowered her visor, holding out her hand for a fresh lance. He gave it to her and she gathered her reins, thinking as quickly as her numb mind could. When the signal came she gave Peachblossom the order to charge and he obeyed, the faces in the stands blurring into damp smudges. Sir Isaac was unclouded, so clear in her vision that she could see every movement of muscle under his armour. There went his shield again, dropping down and to the right to avoid her lance point. She would not aim for his shield this time. An undefended shoulder was fair game and she was not feeling merciful. Lance and plate armour met with a dull thud and a slight crunch and Sir Isaac flew from his saddle like someone had grabbed a handful of his cloak and yanked. His fall ended abruptly as his left foot caught in the stirrup and the grey charger continued its gallop down the tilting lane, dragging him behind. Men came sprinting onto the field to help him and the chief herald managed to cut the stallion off with his own horse.

Sir Isaac was even smaller curled into a ball on the ground than she had thought him to be when she saw him before the joust. Kel dismounted, ducked under the dividing fence and ran over to where the healer was trying to get his helmet off. It was nearly half-way lifted when Sir Isaac came to life, seized the healer by the wrist with his good arm and thrust her away from him. Kel could hear how ragged his breathing was as he struggled to his feet but he shook off the herald and anyone else who tried to stop him, limping over to snatch his horse’s reigns from the monitor who held them. Kel caught up to him and grabbed hold of his arm, “Let the healer look at you, Sir. If you are seriously injured I’ll feel it on my conscience.”

But the knight only wrenched his arm out of her grasp, mounted his horse with so much difficulty that it hurt her to watch him and trotted it down the field, clinging grimly to the saddle to keep himself mounted and upright. At the end of the tilting lane, a giant of a man dressed in heavy green brocade strode forward to take the horse by the bridle and lead it away. Kel saw the knight slump forward in his saddle, one hand buried in the horse’s mane before the mist hid them from sight.

 

* * *

 

 

Lying on her back on a bale of hay, Kel let her eyes close and tried to relax all of the muscles in her face. The afternoon sunlight shone red through her eyelids and she had to rest the back of her hand over her eyes to be in darkness. She listened to the flies and the quiet movement of horses in their stalls while her face throbbed. Her nose was swollen and she could still taste blood in her mouth. She leant over the edge of the bale and spat onto the straw-strewn floor, knowing it would do little to improve anything. Lying back again made her feel dizzy and Kel gave a small groan. Jump whined at her from where he sat at the foot of the bale.

“It could be worse,” Kel told him, “I could be Sir Isaac.” She folded her hands on her stomach and breathed deeply, allowing the sun to bathe her aching face like warm water. The hay beneath her stopped feeling prickly against her back and the gentle rise and fall of her stomach under her hands was soothing. She slipped into dreaming as easily as a seal slides into the shallows of a quiet sea.

_The heat on her face was not the sun but a large bonfire. She sat cross-legged in front of it under a night sky that blazed with foreign stars. Sand surrounded her like an ocean-less beach and she could make out the profiles of massive dunes far in the distance. The light cast by the fire made it seem like she was in a pool of tawny gold, the flames and the lit sand flickering in all different shades of red and dun. There was the faintest whisper of music, blown in by a soft breeze, which sounded to Kel like twanging wire and a slow drumbeat. It pleased and disturbed her, becoming louder and softer as the wind rose and fell. The fine hairs on her arms prickled. Across from her, on the other side of the fire, sat a creature with its back to her. At first she thought it was some kind of an animal. She could hear a low crooning sound coming from it and there was something inhuman about its shape. It shifted to one side and Kel saw that it was a young man, bare-foot and wearing nothing but a loincloth under a heavy cloak of black fur. He was crouched over a sharp-faced dog, running his hands over its back and ribs as it lay on its side in the sand. A litter of soft, mewling puppies squirmed against its belly. As Kel watched, the man moved his hand from the mother to her puppies, laying it on them one-by-one as if he was examining each of them in turn. At last his hand paused on one and he seized it roughly by the scruff, holding it up to the fire for Kel to see. It was pitch-black, so young that its eyes were still squeezed tightly shut against the light._

_“Prince of Teeth,” said the man, in a voice that was startlingly deep, “Open your eyes.” The puppy’s eyes flicked open and it looked at Kel through the flames. Its eyes were blue and not animal-like at all. When its mouth opened and it began to cry, its wails were those of a new-born baby._

Kel woke to find a shadow falling over her face, blocking the sunlight. She sat up quickly and the boy who had been leaning over her jumped back, looking sheepish. He was four or five years younger than her, dressed in the scarlet and gold of a page. Kel squinted up at him, shading her eyes with her hand when he began to speak. He seemed flustered and a little upset, his voice breaking every now and then as if he felt like crying.

“I’m sorry, Squire, but I need to use the hay.”

She gazed at him blankly for a moment with the soft resonance of strange music still in her ears, then realised what he wanted and got stiffly to her feet. The page waited until she had moved a few paces away before he approached the bale she had been lying on and began tugging handfuls of hay out of it. Kel watched him with bemusement then took a step back.

“Do you… uh… need some help there?”

“No,” He said, a little too quickly, then sniffed and wiped his nose on his sleeve. Kel came to stand beside him, wondering how best to help him. He was small for his age and not strong-looking, his hair sweaty and his chin shaking just a little. She considered asking him whether the other pages were being unkind but she thought better of it and said,

“You want to feed your horse?”

“Yes,” he glanced at her with embarrassed hostility, “You can go. I don’t need help.”

Kel shrugged, “I have nothing better to do. Here, I’ll show you a trick.”

She went over to the larger stack of bales at the end of the stable block, kicking up the loose bits of straw on the ground until she found one of the long piece of twine that had been cut from the bindings of another bale. When she came back with it the boy was still frowning but he did not tell her to go away. Kel slipped one end of the length of twine under the bale’s own binding and pulled it until it was half-way under. Holding one end in each hand like reins, she began to saw with it, pulling back and forth as quickly as possible.

“The idea is to keep it moving on one particular spot,” Kel said, seeing the boy watching her, “This piece of string wears away at the one binding the bale. The faster you go, the quicker the binding will give way.”

She put one foot against the bale and leant back, giving a few more hard tugs to either side before the binding broke. Satisfied, she dropped her piece and pulled the binding away.

“Will you fetch that pitchfork over there?”

The page found the fork leaning against a stable door and brought it to her without complaint. Kel took it and gave the bale a light kick. It collapsed quite neatly into several pieces and she speared one with the fork. The boy led her down the row of stalls to the opposite end of the block, where many of the pages’ horses were kept. There was no one with the horses now except the two of them. It was getting close to suppertime and the pages should have been finished with their duties in the stables long before. He stopped in front of the very last stall and opened the half-door so Kel could carry the hay to the manger at the back.As she came into the stall, Kel saw the boy’s horse and paused, still hefting the pitchfork in front of her. He was a young grey stallion, his dappled coat freshly brushed and his ears pushed forward with interest. Kel stared at him, forehead wrinkling, until the boy asked her what the matter was. Then she filled the manger and came out again, giving the horse a hard pat and closing the stall door behind her.

“I could swear that I saw a knight riding that horse at the jousting this morning,” she said, setting the pitchfork down against the far wall, “Do you know Sir Isaac of Horsehead Spit?

“He’s my uncle,” said the boy, “I’m Lord Spartak of Horsehead Spit. But I think you must be mistaken. Haven’t you heard what they say about Sir Isaac?”

“What do they say?”

“They call him the Green Giant. He’s too tall to ride Hammer.”

Kel’s frown deepened as she watched Spartak pass her, on his way to the pages’ mess for his supper.

Just as he was about to turn the corner, he hesitated and looked back at her over his shoulder.“Thank you for helping me…” he stopped, uncertain about something, “Look… you helped me so I’ll try and do the same. Go and see my uncle’s blacksmith. He has a shop near the river.”

Kel folded her arms over her chest and considered him, “Why do you think I need a blacksmith?”

“He’ll do the work for free if you tell him you’re a friend of mine.” Spartak shrugged, “Go or don’t go: it doesn’t concern me. But that’s what I’d do if I were you.”

He turned and left, leaving Kel alone with the horses as the setting sun coloured the brick of the stable yard a golden shade of peach.


	2. Chapter 2

The smell of the river was strong along the narrow streets that crowded it on both banks. A faint breeze wafted down the alleys Kel was riding through, making the shop awnings flutter and the smell of algae and fish worsen as it passed. She moved slowly, edging between open stalls and huddles of beggar children who tugged on her trousers and reached up to her with cupped hands. Sweat ran down her neck and beaded on her upper lip, her bare-headedness seeming unwise at the height of midday. Her hair was longer than it had been in several years and she liked the way it looked without a hat or helm, loose and curling slightly against the collar of her shirt.

She halted and gave a penny to the dirty little boy clutching her boot buckle, who took it unsmilingly and wiped his running nose on the front of his tunic. When she leaned down from the saddle and asked if he knew where the riverside blacksmith kept his forge, the urchin pointed to a dribble of smoke rising from a rooftop a few alleys down, on the street closest to the river. Thanked with a second penny, he produced an unhappy half-smile and scuttled away. Kel craned her neck to watch him go before urging her horse onward into the throng of the street.

The alley that looked out onto the stagnant riverfront was nearly deserted. Two young men stood smoking near the back door of a tavern and a third further down the street was halfway up a ladder, repainting a pawnbroker’s signboard. An old, slope-backed horse was tied to the tethering post in front of a low-roofed workshop neighbouring the pawnbroker and Kel could guess that it had been left there to be shoed by the blacksmith. The men outside the tavern watched her closely as she rode past and when they saw the longsword at her belt they tapped their pipes clean of tobacco on the cobbles and ducked back through the low door. Kel rode on and dismounted at the forge, tying her horse beside the other and taking her dented jousting helm from the canvas bag behind the saddle. Before she could approach the workshop, the man on the ladder coughed pointedly so that she looked up, eyebrows raised in slight surprise.

“You dress like a young knight,” he said, and when she told him that he had guessed correctly he used the end of his paintbrush to scratch behind his ear, “Are you giving work to the smith?”

“I am. Why do you want to know?”

He wiped sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand and said, “He’s not a knightly man.”

Kel gave the painter a small smile, “If I only did business with men who chose to act as a knight should, I would never be able to buy anything from anyone.”

He shrugged at her and leaned forward into his work again, his deft right hand dipping the brush into a tin of white paint and tracing the long, straight back of a capital letter. Kel thanked him quietly for his concern and pulled aside the heavy curtain that hung over the doorway of the blacksmith’s workshop, stepping inside and letting the smoke-stained cloth fall back into place behind her. The front room of the forge was windowless, lit only by the ruddy light of the central fire pit and so stiflingly hot that Kel breathed out sharply and had to rest the flat of her hand against the wall to steady herself. The floor was hard-packed dirt and the bare bricks of the walls were black with old smoke. Kel could make out a narrow flight of stairs in the back left corner, which she supposed led up to the smith’s living quarters in the rooms above. There was no one forging at the fire, but a girl was shovelling coal into it from the large pile against the back wall and when Kel came in she looked up but did not stop working.Her face was difficult to make out in the semi-darkness.

“Kyreh,” she said, greeting Kel softly in a language she did not recognise.

Kel stepped forward into the workshop to see her better and stumbled over a rut in the sunken floor. The girl tilted her head to one side, watching Kel regain her balance, then put down her shovel and moved to light a paraffin lamp hung from a hook in the wall. She seemed to walk with much difficulty, limping more heavily than anyone Kel had ever seen. As lamplight filled the room, Kel saw that she was two or three years younger than herself, a thin girl in loose trousers and a dirty, sweat-soaked singlet. Her hair was black and curly, tied back clumsily and damp with perspiration.

“Hello,” said Kel, “You’re the blacksmith’s apprentice, maybe?”

The girl shook her head and hiked up her trousers, which were being kept in place by a piece of rope. Her arms were black with coal dust up to the elbows and when she wiped her hands on her singlet she added two fresh black stains to the front of it. She was quiet for so long that Kel started to worry that she didn’t speak the same language. Her faint wheezing turned into hard coughing which she covered with her hand, then she cleared her throat and said, “His servant, Mistress.” Her voice was hoarse and only slightly accented, something possibly eastern. Looking at her closely, Kel could see that her skin was a golden ochre colour beneath the dirt.

“Is your master here? I was told he might do some work for me.”

She shook her head again, “He’s having siesta.”

Kel stepped towards the girl to show her the helmet, and stopped when she lurched awkwardly back from her as if she thought Kel was going to bite her. Her hands came up in front of her so that Kel could see the soot caught in the lines of her palms. Dropping the helmet on the ground, Kel held up her own hands in a sign of good intent, then gestured for her to put hers down. The girl did, very slowly, and without meeting Kel’s eyes.

“I have no intention of hurting you,” said Kel, picking up her helmet again, “But I would like to ask your opinion on my helm.”

The girl looked from Kel to the helmet in her hands and back to Kel’s face, then limped to the paraffin lamp and took it down from its hook. The lamp swung sickeningly as she hobbled back to where Kel was standing. Her limp was so bad that her left leg seemed to drag stiffly behind her and her right was only marginally better. When she stood still, she kept the left leg resting at an angle, as though her knee was incapable of bending.

“Let me see it,” she said in her low, hoarse voice.

Kel took the lamp and gave her the helmet, which she held gently and turned in her hands expertly and almost tenderly. Her long, brown fingers skimmed the surface of the steel, lingering over the dent, while her other hand explored it on the inside. After a few minutes she put it under her arm and looked up at Kel, “Alright.”

“Your master can fix it for me?”

She nodded and went to put the helmet on an anvil near the fire. Kel hung the lamp back on its hook and turned around to ask how much the blacksmith would charge her for the work. The girl was bent over with one hand over her mouth and the other pressed into her chest as her whole body convulsed with coughs. Kel moved to her and was about to put a hand on her hunched back when she caught sight of an ugly bruise that spread in deep yellow and purple from a point just below the girl’s left shoulder. She reached out gingerly and touched it and the girl pushed her hand away violently, staggering away and still coughing.

“Now it’s my turn to have a look,” said Kel, “Do you need a healer?”

“No,” she said, between coughs.

When the realisation came to Kel, it felt as if she should have known it when she first saw the blacksmith’s servant. The girl’s coughing had subsided and Kel took her quite roughly by the shoulders and held her at arm’s length. She fought to get out of Kel’s grasp but could not break free.

“I want the gods’ truth from you,” Kel said to her, “Have we met before?”

“No.”

“I think we have. Tell me it wasn’t you I knocked into the mud at the jousting two days ago.”

 

* * *

 

 

There were heavy footsteps on the floorboards of the loft above the forge and their weight sent small streams of black dust trickling down into the workshop. The girl, who had not answered Kel even when given a small shake, looked up at the ceiling like a dog startling at the sound of thunder. Then she met Kel’s eyes and said, “Let me go,” in a voice that was so full of unexpected violence that Kel obeyed without hesitating. Released, the girl struggled over to one of the bellows beside the fire and began pumping at its handles, the lit coals in the pit glowing a deep crimson with each downward push. Kel was about to tell her that she would take silence as an agreement when the door at the top of the stairs opened and a man appeared in the doorway, tying a leather apron over his bare chest.

He was short and very broad in the shoulders, beardless and younger than middle-aged, though his mop of yellow curls was already greying. It looked as if he had come from washing: his face and hands were clean and his hair was slightly damp. With an uninterested glance at Kel, he closed the door behind him and came down the stairs, still fumbling with his apron tie. Closer to him, she could see distinct tan-lines on his upper arms, above the elbows, where his shirt had protected the skin from sun. When he reached the bottom step and asked what it was she wanted, Kel smiled politely and gestured to her helmet, “I was speaking to your servant about my helm, sir.”

She watched him carefully as she spoke, seeing the twitch of pleasure when she called him sir. Then he nodded once and turned to retrieve her helmet from its place on the anvil. He had held it for only a moment when he paused and squinted at her, one finger tapping the place where an owl had been delicately stamped into the steel while it was still warm.

“The Mindelan Lady Knight,” he said, looking back at the helm, then quickly over his shoulder at the servant girl near the fire. Kel rubbed her chin with a thumb, trying to understand the look that passed between them, but a second later the smith had turned back to her with a wide, apologetic smile, holding out her helmet and explaining pleasantly that he was not equipped to undertake work for noblemen. With a glance of her own at the girl, Kel asked whether he would deny having business with another knight recently, a Sir Isaac of Horsehead Spit. As she spoke, she saw the man’s face tense, his brow creasing a little as his eyebrows dropped. Then he sighed and nodded once, his expression clearing like the sky when a cloud has moved over the face of the sun.

“I deny nothing, Lady. Though that family…” he gave her a lazy shrug, “They can scarcely claim to be noblemen. Smugglers and pirates, all.”

Kel took back the helm, feeling the lingering warmth in it from the fire, which was blazing higher and higher as the girl wheezed and sweated at the bellows.

“That’s a curious way to speak of one’s patrons. They are your best patrons in Corus, are they not?”

Again he looked to the girl, faster this time and with barely-concealed anger, “Sadly, My Lady, we cannot all afford knightly values. I have more than my own mouth to feed.”

She could not restrain a small sneer when he tilted his head towards the bellows. If he was providing for anyone other than himself then his servant girl was not that someone.

“I understand that,” she said, “But if you cannot afford a knightly attitude then I advise you keep yourself and your associates away from the affairs of knights as well.”

Kel pointed at the girl, and looked the smith straight in the face, “I will never again discover that you have sent a child to be killed or mutilated on the jousting field. It is depraved and illegal, regardless of how much silver you were paid to do it.”

She spat at his boots, and had turned to speak to the girl when there was a creak on the stairs and she looked up to see the tall silhouette of a man in front of the door, staring down at them. He moved a few steps down until she could see him better in the bad light: a towering young man several inches taller than herself, dressed like a lord in a loose-collared silk shirt and a heavy cloak of green brocade, fastened at the neck with a silver brooch.

“Strong language, Mindelan,” he said, quietly, “If I had heard lesser things about you, I might think you were being suspiciously defensive. Gods’ truth, you were very closely matched against an untrained little cripple.”

He smiled and came down into the workshop, offering her his hand. His smile broadened when she did not take it.

“I am Sir Isaac of Horsehead Spit. I apologise that we have to meet here and not on the jousting field as I intended, but the situation was taken out of my hands.”

Kel studied him, disliking the way she was forced to look up into his face. Despite his enormous height, Sir Isaac was still as thin and awkward as a youth on the cusp of adulthood. She could see his narrow chest under the unfastened collar of his shirt and the careful beginnings of a moustache on his upper lip. He could only be a year or two older than herself, though the deep brown of his tan suggested several years of active service, perhaps on the sea. His dark hair was thick and curly, tied back from his face with a piece of ribbon, and he wore a basket-hilted cutlass at his belt instead of a longsword. Kel suspected that he was the root of the rumours about his family’s piracy. Seeing her gaze pause on his sword, Sir Isaac placed his left hand lightly on the pommel and began to explain his dealings with the servant girl, whom he called Neophytos. Kel had to ask him to repeat it and he laughed and said, “A strange name. From central Carthak.”

He admitted that he had borrowed the girl to squire for him during the tournament. She was patient with horses and took a keen interest in the jousting, and Sir Isaac had never taken on a proper squire from the palace.

“They don’t have the stomachs for naval campaigning,” he said to Kel, with a small wink, “They are either as sick as the Lioness or too easily bored to show any talent for seamanship.”

Kel thought there was likely another reason. A squire’s loyalty to his master could never be left entirely to trust, especially if Sir Isaac lived up to his reputation. Occasionally commissioning the indentured servant of a hireling was safer; someone who could be coerced and disposed of. He had apparently done this several times before, and given the blacksmith a copper noble for every day she had been away from the forge. But before the joust with Kel, the girl had not woken him.

“It was my own fault,” he explained, “I drank too much the night before.”

When he had woken up, he had found his armour missing and his horse unsaddled. His nephew’s horse had been taken to the jousting instead, with his squire riding in his place. Kel frowned a little, looking up into Sir Isaac’s smiling face as he shrugged and gave her another wink, “A careless mistake, yes? I admit, I should have kept a sharper eye on her.”

As a rule, Kel distrusted men who winked at her. They always wanted something for it, and she was trying to understand what it was Sir Isaac wanted. To convince her that it was not worth growing angry? Or that if she did feel the need for retribution, it should be against the girl rather than in her defence? As if he could follow her train of thought, Sir Isaac’s smile faded and he said, “Your anger is justified, Lady Keladry. It is an insult against any knight’s honour to be challenged by a smith’s drudge. If I were you I would want to see punishment,” he glanced at the smith, “Fetch me a whip.”

As soon as he had spoken, the smith seized the girl roughly by the hair and used his free hand to snatch up a long-handled horsewhip that was lent against the back wall.

“No,” said Kel, almost shaking with the effort of not reaching instinctively for her sword, “I hold no grudge against her.”

She disliked unsheathing a weapon until its necessity was absolute, but if either of the two men made an attempt to hurt the girl any more than she had clearly already been mistreated, she would quickly become a good deal more forceful. Sir Isaac raised his eyebrows at her, then reached over and took the whip from the smith.

“A merciful lady, then? I never learnt that particular knightly quality,” he swung his wrist thoughtfully so that the whip cut through the air with a shrill, satisfying sound, “Shall we say two dozen?”

He did not wait for an answer, drawing his arm back and delivering a sharp blow across the small of the girl’s back, while the smith held her by a fistful of hair and the front of her singlet. Without hesitation, Kel moved to draw her sword. She had gripped the hilt and already pulled out an inch of steel when a hand grasped her wrist gently and pushed down, sliding the sword back into its sheath. Kel turned angrily and found Neal beside her, frowning and confused, his hair falling into his eyes and his hand still holding her sword arm. His gaze shifted from Sir Isaac to the girl and she saw him flinch slightly. Then he said, softly, “What’s this, Kel?” and she knew that he was asking how much danger they were in, whether a sword was both necessary and sensible. Only recently they had been at war, and had become so accustomed to the inevitability of violence that now Kel often mistook every scene of injustice she came across for an old battlefield, rather than what it was: a dirty shop on a neglected street in Corus.

She took a deep, difficult breath and said, “Either Sir Isaac does not know that the King’s law forbids the beating of indentured servants, or he thinks that I am the kind of knight who ignores lawlessness,” she tugged her arm out of his grip, “I am not.”

They both looked at Sir Isaac, who tapped the tip of the whip against his thigh for a moment before his wide smile appeared again, the one Kel was beginning to hate, and he said to Neal, “I fear that Lady Keladry has misunderstood the situation. It is certainly unlawful to beat an indentured servant.”

He yanked the girl away from the smith and dragged her in front of him, resting a hand on her thin shoulder.

“Perhaps neither of you are aware that my mother was born in Carthak,” his smile broadened, “She was the daughter of a prince, no less, though I suppose my family is too obscure for you to have heard that.”

He pushed the end of the whip against the underside of the girl’s chin until she raised her head and they could see the worn leather strap around her throat.

“As a citizen of that great empire I am happily within my rights to own Carthaki slaves, to lend them to my artisans, and to discipline them as I like. The King of Tortall has no authority to revoke the privileges of a free-born Carthaki.”

Kel stared at Sir Isaac, then glanced at Neal, whose frown had changed into a grimace of displeasure, as though he had tasted something acidic and wanted to spit. He shook his head at her, so apologetic that she knew immediately that he wasn’t going to be able to help her.

“I don’t know, Kel. He could be right: in which case, taking the girl from him would be theft. We would be arrested.”

Kel realised then how much she loved Neal for including himself, for reminding her that if she decided it was something she was willing to risk, he would follow without hesitation. In the same moment she understood that she was not prepared to drag him into disgrace with her, which would inevitably happen if she gambled on Sir Isaac’s story and was outplayed.

“How eager is your family for a blood feud, Mindelan?” asked Sir Isaac, his smile as pleasant as if he were offering her an apple, “Lay one hand on my property and we’ll find out.”

Overwhelmed by frustration and a sense of certain defeat, Kel let go of her sword hilt and pinched her thumb and forefinger against the bridge of her nose, where she was still swollen from the jousting. Every hair on the back of her neck prickled with anger and finally she spat, “Gods damn it!” and whirled around, striding out of the workshop with so much force that she nearly tore down the curtain that hung over the doorway. Neal hurried after her, mounting the horse he had tethered beside Peachblossom and trying to speak to her, although she was too enraged and sickened by what she had done to listen to him as he explained anxiously how he had been looking for her since the jousting and that Tobe had at last told him that she had ridden into the city to see a blacksmith near the river.

“Kel, listen to me,” he said, as she gathered her reins, “Who is that girl? And why by the Goddess does she need you to fight her battles for her?”

She glared at him with such hurt and disappointment that his eyes widened and he lent down and grabbed hold of Peachblossom’s bridle before she could ride away from him in disgust: “You really are incredibly Ungifted, aren’t you? I nearly got a nosebleed just from looking at her.”

Kel stopped trying to push him away and frowned at him, “What are you trying to say?”

“I told you once that Numair’s Gift is like standing too close to a bonfire, do you remember? Well, coming face to face with your dirty little friend was like looking directly into the sun.”


	3. Chapter 3

The crowds in the streets had worsened with the flood of people leaving the city after market. They fought against the tide of bodies moving against them, nudging their horses forward towards the palace grounds. The air was thick with flies and the cries of livestock and children, the heat made unbearable by the rich, clinging smell of manure. Butchers had set up tables outside their shops, trying to tempt the passers-by with glistening cuts of meat or greasy black sausages, their table tops slick with blood. Kel caught sight of a boy in an apron tipping a bucket of entrails into the gutter with its contents seething with maggots. She leaned down from the saddle and was violently sick, making the people pushed up against her horse yell in disgust and shrink back from her, clearing a small space around them. Resting her cheek against Peachblossom’s warm, twitching neck, Kel closed her eyes in dizziness and nausea. Neal was shouting to her over the noise of the street, but all she could see through her closed eyelids was a vast expanse of red sand.

_For a long time there was only the red sand and the hot, white sky. Everything was still and absolutely silent: no flies buzzed and nothing moved. She stood by herself, though her own breath made no sound and the thud of her pulse was absent. A gentle wind blew across the sand towards her, riffling through her hair like cool fingers. Inexorably slowly, clouds began to appear on the horizon and the sand became pockmarked with raindrops. Water trickled over her bare feet, spurting over her toes like tiny rapids. It pooled around her and, as she watched, grass sprouted at the pool’s edges. Saplings burst out of the damp earth and stretched into full-grown palm trees. A frog leapt from the sand into the water and a white-feathered heron stalked after it, its head sharp and snake-like above the water. Kel stood knee-deep, unable to move as small fish flitted past her, brushing against her legs and feet. One minute a large desert cat was crouching at the water’s edge and the next it was gone, scared away by the distant sound of camels and men’s voices._

_It was a caravan of travellers, some riding camels and others walking beside loaded mules. They drew close to the oasis and watered their animals, then filled pots for their own use. One of the younger men, with a thin beard and anxious eyes, lit a small fire and put a kettle of water over it to boil. On the edge of the group, behind the last camel, Kel could see a huddle of people, who she thought stood close together to talk, before realising that they were chained to one another. They were half-naked, all boys or youths, with sun-scorched skin. A man led them to the water and they drank thirstily, splashing their limbs and faces and shaking water from their hair. Suddenly, one looked up, across the pool and pointed to something on the far side. His chin dripped and he rubbed it slowly with the back of his free hand, still pointing with the other. Quickly those around him glanced up and began to point with long, brown fingers. With great effort, Kel turned her gaze to see what the slaves had seen on the opposite shore: a hunched, dark shape that crouched low on the sand. The hair on the nape of her neck prickled in a kind of slow-stirring horror as she recognised the spidery man in his black fur cloak. This time his face was covered by a black wooden mask with a long, pointed snout and triangular jackal ears. There were only two narrow slits for eyes._

_A shout came from one of the traders brewing tea at the fire and two of the slaves were unchained, who stripped off what clothing they had and plunged naked into the water. They half-swam, half-waded across to the figure and knelt close to him in the shallows as he stepped lithely onto their bare, sunburnt shoulders. Then they stood and bore him back, above the surface of the water. As they passed Kel, beginning to struggle as the water became shallower again and the full weight of the man settled upon their backs, she could see that he was holding something close to his side beneath the cloak. The shape squirmed in his grip and Kel realised it was a dog, older than the previous suckling puppies but still a good way from full-grown. The man held it roughly by the scruff, his elbow digging into its ribs to keep it pressed close to him. It wriggled in discomfort and he held it more tightly, so tightly that Kel wanted to wince in sympathy for it. Then they reached the shore and the slaves knelt again, allowing the man to step lightly down onto the sand. His feet were long and bare, leaving the shallowest scuffs in the sand. Three of the elder, better-dressed of the traders approached him and when they were about three feet away they fell to their knees and scooped up handfuls of sand, which they held above their heads and then let run through their fists into their hair. The man watched their adoration for a moment, then shrugged his cloak over one shoulder and threw the dog down onto the ground. The traders sat back, still on their knees, looking at the dog with some surprise. Then the man gave out a short bark of laughter and flung his cloak off and over the dog. A desert wind roared up suddenly, making waves on the oasis pool and sand devils spring up, forcing the traders to throw up their hands to protect their eyes. When the wind died away, the man yanked back the cloak and the three traders prostrated themselves again, joined now by all those around them, slave and freeman alike. One cried out a hoarse exaltation:_

_“Jihuk! Kyrie Erimou! Jihuk!”_

_They had just seen the young dog transformed into a little girl, curled naked on the sand._

Kel came back to herself with something that felt like a physical jolt, as if a part of her that had strayed away had fallen into her body again from a great height. She was still on horseback, face buried in Peachblossom’s mane, arms flung around his dusty neck. Neal had her reigns gathered with his own and was guiding her along behind him as he rode up a quiet street. The sun was a crimson smear on the horizon and the buildings on either side were casting long shadows. Far ahead up the street she could see the looming shape of the royal walls and a side gate to the palace grounds. The horses were moving slowly, at a long-striding walk that rocked her gently back and forth. She closed her eyes again for a moment, then sat upright in the saddle with a groan. Neal glanced back over his shoulder and gave her a deep frown of concern.

“Give me back the reigns,” she said, her throat dry as if she had woken from a long sleep.

“No. I think I’ll keep them for a while.”

“Give them to me. I’m turning around.”

Neal urged the horses into a trot, forcing her to grab at her saddle to steady herself.

“You want to turn back and do what?” he asked, not looking around at her, “Start some family feud that your father will have to finish for you? In the state you’re in now?” Kel made a lunge for the reigns but Neal pulled them out of her reach and rode faster, “Tell me honestly, Kel: are you sick?”

Kel sighed and rubbed her forehead, where she could feel a headache beginning to throb behind her eyes, “I don’t know. Maybe.”

“Fine. We’re going to the right place to find out.”

They came to a halt beside the gate in the palace walls and the lone sentry there snapped to attention and called to the man on the other side, who slid back the bolts. Together the two guards pushed open the gates and Kel and Neal rode through into the quiet of the palace grounds in the evening light.

 

* * *

 

 

The horses knew they were approaching the cottage when the only sign of it was a smudge of smoke rising above the tops of the poplar trees. Their strides became eager and their necks stretched forward, ears flicking keenly as if they were riding home to familiar grazing. Kel sat back as they rode through the trees, her hands resting lightly on her thighs, trying to enjoy the sensation of being led. She could hear the turtle doves chuckling softly in the lower branches and feel the dappled sunlight falling in a pattern of coolness and warmth on her upturned face. She reached up and ran her fingers lightly over the leaves above her head, flicking away a soft-looking little caterpillar that was brushed from its leaf and onto the back of her wrist. Neal looked back at her with a strange, wistful expression and when she met his eyes he said, “You look love-sick, you know that?”

“What do you mean?”

“One moment you’re fainting, the next you look like a ship on still waters. If it’s not love it must be some curse.”

Kel let her hands fall into her lap, “It isn’t love, Neal.”

The cabin in the royal forest was built on the very edge of the grounds, its back pressed against the southern wall of the palace district. It had been built pain-stakingly from the foundations to the roofing tiles by a pair who had lived long enough in the tumult of the palace and its satellite buildings to appreciate the quiet of the little clearing. Occasionally the breeze would run swiftly through the poplars in the early evening and make a soothing, rustling sound. Kel had visited only once before, during a period of leave she had taken near the end of the war. She had thought it was a good place to raise children. It was small, no larger than a peasant’s homestead but well-built and lovingly maintained, without leaning walls or missing shingles. The yard in front of it was hard-packed dirt with a central well and a clothes line off to one side heavily laden by a row of white sheets drying in the breeze.

As they rode into the yard Neal was forced to bring both horses to a sudden halt to avoid knocking into a little girl who was crossing in front of them with four or five goats. She looked about six, strong for her age with bare feet and a frizzy mop of dark hair. She stood directly before Neal, her nose inches from his horse’s chest and looked up at him with solemn, unblinking brown eyes.

“Sarra,” called Daine from the cottage door, “Move out of the way, sweetheart.”

The little girl adjusted her hold on the Billy goat’s rope halter and trudged on towards a small corral set up against the eastern wall of the cottage, clucking her tongue softly at the rest of the goats, who trotted off behind her like goslings after their mother. Daine ruffled her hair as she passed then stepped over to take Neal’s horse by the bridle. She glanced from Kel’s pale, bruised face to the streak of dried vomit on Peachblossom’s shoulder.

Kel flushed and dismounted stiffly, “I haven’t been drinking; not anymore.”

Daine nodded slowly, stroking the horse’s nose with the tips of her fingers. She called to Sarralyn to put the horses in with her goats, then took Kel gently by the elbow and brought her into the warmth of the cottage’s sunken kitchen. Neal lingered in the low doorway until Daine had sat her down at one of the long benches on either side of the scarred wooden table, then ducked into the room and sat down beside her, straddling the bench. Daine poured out a cup of water from a pitcher and set it on the table before Kel.

“If you’re ill I suppose you want to see Numair,” she said, turning to stir the contents of a large black pot that had been hung over the fire, “You’ll have to wait while he puts Rikash to bed. Human anatomy was never my strong suit.”

Neal’s mouth twisted slightly, “I’m afraid that it’s all rather complicated. We aren’t entirely sure what we’ve involved ourselves with.”

Daine left the fire, giving Neal a fleeting, knowing look, and began to set out the beginnings of an evening meal: bread, goat’s cheese and a clay jar of wine. When she asked whether they would stay for supper, Neal accepted at the same time as Kel declined.

“Kel,” he muttered, “We can’t help anyone tonight.”

Before Kel could object, Daine interrupted to ask when she had last had a meal. Her answer was not satisfactory and she was told with no uncertainty that she would be staying to eat.

While Daine was cutting slices of bread from the loaf on the table, Sarralyn came in, shutting the cottage door on the last of the early evening light. Daine pointed her towards a tin basin of soapy-looking water in the corner, but Sarralyn walked straight past it and through another door. Daine sighed and rubbed a hand across her crinkled forehead.

“Sarralyn can be a little difficult,” she said, smiling sheepishly, “A wild one, Numair calls her, which is not altogether surprising I suppose. I wouldn’t mind it so much if she gave Numair the same trouble, but she worships the ground he walks on.”

“Well,” said Numair, coming into the kitchen with Sarralyn on his shoulders, “Who can blame her?” He carried her over to the bath and swung the girl to the ground in front of him. Looking her up and down he winked at Daine and said, “Come, dirty little puppy. We cannot dine with handsome young knights smelling of goats.”

Sarralyn glanced shyly at Kel and Neal, then lifted her arms so that Numair could pull her stained tunic over her head and scoop her up under the arms and into the water with a splash. He scrubbed at her with mock vigour while Daine dished vegetable stew into wooden bowls, then dried her off with a towel and dressed her in a clean loincloth and what looked like one of his own white linen shirts. Kel watched him stand her on the empty bench so that he could fold up the shirt sleeves to fit her and run a bone comb through her damp tangles. She thought of her own father and the position she had almost placed him in earlier in the day. Again she thanked the gods for Neal’s presence.

When he was finished, Numair sat down opposite Neal and patted the seat between himself and Daine, which Sarralyn took, her chin level with the table top. Daine passed around the jar of wine but Kel shook her head and had her cup refilled with water.

“You don’t drink anymore, Kel?” asked Numair, picking up his spoon. Kel shrugged and gave him a small smile, “Not for several weeks, sir.”

He nodded, scooping a leek into his mouth and chewing thoughtfully, then patted Sarralyn on the back, “You’ll forgive Sarra’s lack of conversation. She’s a little in awe of you, Kel. She went to see you jousting yesterday morning, didn’t you Sarra?”

The child had been swallowing stew as if she would never eat again, but paused now to look up at Kel with an awkward smile. Kel hesitated with her spoon halfway to her lips and smiled back, then turned her attention to Numair, “It was brave of her to sit through the rain. What’s worse is that I gave a pretty poor account of myself.”

Numair gestured at her face with the butter knife, “How do you feel?”

“As bad as I look. But tell me, sir, do you know my opponent at all?’

“Your opponent in the lists or your opponent on the field?” he asked, buttering his slice of bread and taking a large bite of it.

Kel frowned, “You know that I wasn’t jousting against Sir Isaac of Horsehead Spit.”

“Sir Isaac is a giant, and graceless with a lance. Whoever did that to your face is neither, from what I’ve heard.”

Neal leaned forward across the table, “You didn’t think anything of it?”

“It’s not unheard of for a squire to joust under his master’s name.”

“It was not his squire,” said Kel, “He claims her a Carthaki slave and a legal possession of his through his mother.”

Numair set down his spoon with a glance at Daine, “I suppose that’s the reason you came to see me. You want to know the legality of owning Carthaki slaves within Tortall’s jurisdiction?”

They both nodded and he sighed, taking another bite of bread and drinking deeply from his cup before speaking, “If you aren’t already aware: this is not my idea of pleasant dinnertime conversation. Pass me the wine, Nealan.”

Kel winced a little, “I’m sorry to have to ask you. Under different circumstances we might have waited until a more appropriate time, but the girl is being mistreated. She is thin and ill and being beaten more than fed, I think.”

Numair nodded, refilling his clay goblet to the brim. He drank again and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, then said, “I wouldn’t guess that it is common knowledge but the legislation concerning this sort of thing is old, made before King Jonathan’s father was on the thrown. I have asked several times for the matter to be reviewed. But alas, the number of cases like it are too rare for the king to regard as urgent.”

Neal rubbed his eyes tiredly, “It’s true then: there is no law allowing us to free her. He can do what he likes?”

“If he is truly a Carthaki citizen, and he is. I knew his mother when I was a younger man. She was a gentle lady, who deserved a better son.”

They had finished their stew and were passing around a plate of sweet sliced apples when Kel, who had been silent for some while, suddenly spoke again.

“That’s not all. Neal says that Isaac’s slave is Gifted.”

Numair paused, holding a slice of apple between finger and thumb, and looked from Kel to Neal. Neal cleared his throat and said, “It’s true. The girl has some form of power, though exactly what it is I couldn’t say.”

“You know for certain it was her own?” asked Daine, “It could not have been the residue of some charm or curse worked upon her by another?”

Kel could sense Numair’s piqued interest. He listened intensely for an answer, his eyes bright in the light of the kitchen fire. Neal saw it too and seemed shy of the magician’s intense attention. He blinked and said, cautiously, “I hesitate to make any definite claims, sir. It was not anything I recognised with certainty. All I will say is that it was exceedingly bright: a hot, white radiance.”

Numair turned to look at Sarralyn with raised eyebrows, “You failed to mention.”

The little girl shrugged and put another piece of apple into her mouth.

“If it is a curse,” Kel interrupted, “Then it may be a contagious one. Her presence does something to me. I had a dream after the jousting unlike any I’ve had, apart perhaps from the ones I dreamt during the war. It was more a vision than a dream. I had a second shortly before we arrived.”

Numair gave his apple slice to Sarralyn and rested his elbows on the table, steepling his long fingers.

“In that case, I think I may have a plan.”  


	4. Chapter 4

The third dream came upon Kel without warning. There was no lurch of nausea or vertigo. She had been standing in the stable courtyard, dressed lightly in armour: a chainmail shirt beneath her tunic and steel greaves and cuisses. Neal was already mounting his mare, dressed similarly, and Kel was waiting to hand him the Royal standard he would carry with them. It was just after sunset and Daine was standing beside her with an oil lamp, holding it aloft so that Numair could saddle his own horse while speaking over his shoulder about the plan they had decided upon. They would go back to the blacksmith’s shop near the river, fully armed and with Numair’s authority to confiscate the slave for an investigation into any threatening magical properties that might be connected to her.

“I’ve done it before,” Numair had said as he tightened his girth by lamplight, “To study objects suspected of being cursed; rings or weapons or things like that.”

Kel lifted the standard up to Neal and he grasped the smooth wooden handle, resting one end on the toe of his left boot. The breeze caught the flag, making it unfurl with an audible snapping sound, and Kel fell into the dirt as if the noise had sent an arrow into the softest part of her stomach, her eyes rolling back into her head.

_She was no longer standing in the cool darkness of a spring evening. The cold against her skin was the deep shadow cast by enormous earthen walls, encircling a city built on the edge of the desert. If she looked up, nearly blinded by the white burning of the sun, she could catch sight of figures stationed along the top of the wall. They were guardsmen, dressed in strange, foreign armour that Kel did not recognise. Beyond them was the silhouette of a spire, thrusting into the cloudless sky. It was the only building in the city taller than the sun-baked walls and Kel had to squint to make out its needle-like tip, around which the black smudged shapes of vultures flew. As Kel watched, one circled lower and lower until it was just above her head. Its wingbeats made strands of her hair flutter. Finally she stretched out her arm, which its talons closed upon with unexpected gentleness. As it settled itself there it folded its wings in a shiver of feathers, then tilted its ugly, naked head and regarded her sceptically with one black eye. Its weight on her arm was enormous and its grip threateningly tight. Suddenly it opened its cruel black beak and said, “This is the Hag’s city, in the Hag’s country.”_

_A desert wind picked up and blew across the sand towards the city. The vulture turned its head grotesquely on its scrawny neck to watch as the wind whipped a dust devil into the city walls._

_"But the desert,” it said, “Is not the Hag’s. Century by century, the Lord of the Desert draws nearer.”_

_Lifting her free hand to shade her eyes, Kel looked out along the wall and saw in the distance a plank scaffolding built close within its shadow. There was a small crowd of people lingering around the platform, several mounted on fine southern horses and dressed richly in varying shades of purple and red._

_"Jihuk made a wager with the Hag,” croaked the vulture, “That he would produce a male heir: a young jackal prince. If he won, the Hag would give the boy her desert city, in which stands her first and greatest temple. If he lost, he would give his daughter as a slave to her people.”_

_Through the crowd came a line of figures chained to one another. Two men accompanied them, both on horseback; one rode before and the other behind. Each held a long, serpent-like whip in his hand. They urged on the slaves, whose naked bodies were being scoured by the wind-borne sand. Slowly, climbing the steps carefully in their chains, they mounted the platform: a slave auction. The men swung down from their saddles and followed the slaves onto the plank stage. Kel watched them push slaves into line, cuffing one so hard across the ear that the dull sound of it carried several hundred metres to where she stood. On her arm, the vulture gave a dry, cough-like laugh and said, “The Hag does not lose her wagers.”_ _The struck slave had flinched away, unable to raise chained hands in self-defence. Kel shivered violently as she saw that it was a girl of about twelve, shorter and thinner than the young men she was chained to and with hair as black as the Desert God’s fur cape. From far in the distance, over the dunes, came the faint music of a plucked wire and a steady drumbeat._

Kel opened her eyes, lying flat on her back on the uneven cobbles of the courtyard. A light rain had begun to fall and her tunic was damp, smears of moisture glistening on the links of her chainmail. Her limbs felt heavy and stiff. She had never wanted to sleep so desperately before, not even after battle. If Neal and Daine were not already grasping her by the arms and hauling her to her feet, Kel would have been tempted to stay exactly where she was and fall asleep on the ground in the rain. While the two of them supported her, Numair put a gentle palm on her forehead and asked softly, “Another vision? You’re very pale.” Kel nodded and spat, trying to rid her mouth of a sharp, metallic taste. Her knees, which had been trembling violently, steadied and she told Neal and Daine that they could let her go.

“What did you see?” said Daine, keeping one hand rested on Kel’s shoulder.

“I was in the desert, in Carthak, I think. A vulture spoke to me.”

Numair and Daine exchanged a startled look. Kel leaned over, grasping her knees and trying to breathe deeply, “The dreams are different, but… the same. They’re like tiles in a mosaic.”

“A speaking vulture.” said Daine, “That sounds like a lesser god to me.”

“It told me a story; a Carthaki god whose child was sold into slavery.”

Numair’s face tensed, his brow wrinkling into a deep frown. Then he turned and mounted his horse quickly, gesturing for Neal to do the same. Gathering his reigns he said, “A mosaic, indeed: I believe I’m beginning to see the picture.”

Kel hoisted herself into the saddle with difficulty, despite Daine’s protests and urged Peachblossom after the others with one hand on the reigns and the other on her sword hilt.

 

* * *

 

 

They rode at a swift canter through streets that were almost deserted, though still littered with the debris of the crowds that had made their way out of the city earlier in the evening. The paving was slick with rain and once Kel felt hooves slip suddenly beneath her and her body lurch as the horse regained balance with an unsteady lunge forward. She loosened her hold on the reins, her hands on the damp hair of Peachblossom’s mane and he shook his head with a wet snort and ran faster. Kel looked up, between his flicking red ears, to where Neal and Numair rode just ahead of her. The standard flapped wildly in the night air, its pole held so tightly in Neal’s hand that his knuckles shone hard and white against the dark wood. Beside him, Numair seemed strangely exotic, riding his delicate southern horse with Tyran saddlery Kel had not seen him use before: stirrup-less and made of heavy, embroidered cloth that was tasselled in golden thread. She admired his firm balance, riding confidently and at such a pace without the aid of a pair of stirrups. He was wearing his hair loose and it streamed out behind him as he rode. When Kel came abreast of him she called loudly over the sharp sound of hooves clattering on the pavestones.

“You seem more Southern every time I see you!”

Numair smiled grimly at her and said, “When I was a young man I was ashamed of where I came from. The ways of the South seemed tired and cruel. But as I grow older I feel myself turning back to it, in hope of finding something there that I might give to my children.”

The smell of the river was pungent in the dark and as they turned into the lane that ran along its banks Kel put up a hand, signalling to the others to slow. They walked their horses in single file, trying to move as quietly as possible, without the jingle of harness, and halted outside the blacksmith’s shop. Numair had spoken urgently at the Royal stables about the necessity of approaching carefully, lest Isaac be alerted to their arrival and take measures to hide the girl or smuggle her out of the workshop. On the whispered count of three, they dismounted together in one quick movement and tethered their horses close to each other. Kel positioned herself at the front, pausing beside the draped doorway to the forge to check deftly for an easy draw of her sword from its sheath and to brush a light hand over the hilt of a curved dagger she had become accustomed to wearing on the back of her belt.

In a hoarse mutter she said, “There’s a small step close within the door. Watch for it.” They nodded and she pulled aside the curtain and ducked into the shop, stepping softly down onto the uneven dirt floor.

The room was nearly pitch dark, the only light a smouldering red glimmer from the dying forge. Low as the fire was, it was still unbearably hot and Kel felt beads of sweat form on her forehead and upper lip. There was a sound coming from the dark: a dry rasping, followed by an ugly gurgle, like the noise of water emptying through a rusted drainpipe. Behind her, Numair snapped his fingers and they were bathed in a soft yellow light from a small, shining globe that had appeared in his palm. A moment later, Kel rushed forward to a coal-stained straw pallet that lay beneath the staircase. It was still deep in shadow but visible enough to make out a hunched form slumped upon it. Kel was crouched down beside it, too tall to stand upright without knocking her head on the underside of the staircase. She made a gruff, frustrated noise in the back of her throat and beckoned Numair closer to use his light.

“She’s shackled,” Kel whispered, “Look.”

Numair held the light close and tried to make sense of the mess of chains and dirty clothes. The girl was turned away from them, on her side against the blackened wall. Her wrists and ankles were manacled, the two sets of cuffs connected by a heavy chain that was itself locked to a second chain around the girl’s waist. She was unresponsive, not rousing when Kel shook her by the shoulder with a careful hand over her mouth in case she woke up shouting. Her breathing was laboured and her chest rattled every time she inhaled with the awful, drainpipe sucking Kel had heard from the door.

“This is how they shackle prisoners of war in Carthak,” said Numair, tugging gently at one of the chains, “There’s no time to release them here.”

“Carry her outside then,” said Kel, straightening up and moving around to the foot of the stairs. She ignored Neal’s struggling attempts to lift the girl, whose chains made her unexpectedly heavy, and began to climb the stairs, drawing her dagger. With her other hand she pulled the folded decree of confiscation from where she had tucked it into her belt.

“Kel,” hissed Numair from below, “I didn’t come with you to murder a countryman.”

She reached the top of the stairs and put the toe of her boot against the door to the smith’s room. It was crudely made and ill-fitting: a sheet of corrugated tin that had hinges soldered onto it on one side. It had neither handle nor lock and Kel pushed it open slowly with her boot. There was a candle burning low on a table at the centre of the room. Sir Isaac was sitting in a chair drawn up to the table, asleep with his head on his arms. The smith was sleeping on top of the covers of a narrow bed in the back corner, nearly naked. His discarded trousers were in a pile on the floorboards and the whole room stank of sweat and strong spirits. Kel eyed the glass bottles on the table top, two that were empty and another that was only a quarter full of something clear and oily-looking. She hoped that Isaac thought he was being covert by drinking all night with his tradesmen rather than at home, and that he would be humiliated when he woke up and discovered what had happened. The floorboards were old and creaky, and the soft clinking of Kel’s chainmail and buckles seemed very loud. She edged forward to the table and set the decree down in front of Isaac’s lowered head, smoothing it out. When he did not stir, she leaned down and pulled his own knife from his belt, which she used to skewer the decree to the table.

Sheathing her own dagger, Kel left the room and shut the door quietly behind her. Neal and Numair were carrying the girl towards the doorway, one gripping her beneath the arms and the other beneath the knees. Kel clattered swiftly down the stairs and held the drape aside for them to lift her out of the shop and into the cool night air. They laid her down on the wet paving stones, Neal crouching with his hands tucked beneath her head while Numair untethered his horse and lead her up to the doorway. He patted the mare’s right shoulder and she bent her front legs at the knee, lowering herself carefully until she knelt in front of them. Numair mounted, then gestured for them to settle the girl in front of him. Once she was straddling the mare, Numair wrapped one arm tightly around her midriff, collected his reins with his free hand and clicked his tongue to the horse, who lurched onto her feet with a snort. The girl was still unconscious, her head hanging down with her chin against her chest. Numair shifted a little in the saddle and rocked the girl so that her head fell back against his shoulder. Kel and Neal untethered their own horses and mounted, then followed Numair down the street in a sudden thunder of hooves that rang in their ears after minutes of watchful silence.

“You’re not bloody,” called Numair over his shoulder, “So you didn’t kill him after all.”

“No, but I made my point.”


End file.
